Mobile Games: Top iPhone / iPad Picks 7 July

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IGN's weekly guide to the best of mobile gaming.

By Matt Wales

We all love video games but it's that time of the year when Mother Nature cruelly forces us into making that most difficult of decisions: stay inside - blinds drawn, beads of sweat slowly filling your bumcrack thanks to the sweltering heat - or head for the hills, prancing gaily with lungfuls of summer abandon. Thankfully, the advent of the smart phone has made things just that little bit easier, granting us the very best of both worlds. Now, we can bronze those bits and breathe in that glorious pollen-filled air whilst ogling the latest amusements in mobile phone gaming.

Obviously, we're not condoning the shirking of social decorum, dampening outdoor revelry by sitting hunched over a handset while the rest of your friends cavort like Calvin Klein models in the dappled haze of summer – but should you choose to, we're here once again to bring you the very best of mobile gaming, this week focusing on the digital delights wasting precious moments of our day on iPhone and iPad.

Tiny TowerWe're loathe to start with something as furiously evil as NimbleBit's Tiny Tower (free, Universal), but we wouldn't be doing our job probably if we didn't mention the one game that's successfully sucked more time away from our lives than anything else this month. And it's barely a proper game. Taking its cue from the likes of Yoot Tower, albeit far simpler in scope, Tiny Tower pits you as building manager and general meddling deity in a bid to build up your titular tower, fill it with grateful residents known as Bitizens and set them all to work in the building's many different amenities. Keep shelves stocked (which takes real-time minutes) and workers happy, and the money comes pouring in, perfectly closing the capitalist circle of life.

Admittedly, there's not much to it - you'll pop back in a few times a day to check on stock, ferry a few customers up and down in the elevator, curse the world's slowest construction workers and then bugger off elsewhere. However, it's the delightfully diminutive charm that that pulls you back in - the glorious pixel-art presentation, the silly whims and woes of your Bitizens as they update their social network Bitbook - and each new floor you build brings its own sense of personal gratification. Soon, you're utterly captivated by the gotta-collect-em-all nature of construction, and stretching your tower to the stars becomes all-consuming. It might be a freemium game, but it's freemium done right.

Zoo Keeper DX: Touch Edition Amazingly though, it's not the most compulsive game we've been playing this week. That accolade goes to the infuriatingly addictive Zoo Keeper DX: Touch Edition (&#Array;1.19, Universal). It's an updated version of the stellar DS puzzle title, sporting beautifully-implemented touchscreen controls and a number of subtle yet significant tweaks to the already stunningly moreish formula. It's a match-3 puzzler that makes up for a lack of basic originality with incredibly fast-paced intensity. It's been streamlined from the DS game, ditching its previously glacial opening levels, meaning that quick reactions are instrumental from the off. Leaderboards make competition fierce and it's virtually impossible to resist replays as the quirkily Japanese cast of animals shift their benign expressions to ones of increasingly demoralising mockery.

Continuity 2 Next comes something altogether less frenzied in the form of ingenious puzzler Continuity 2 (59p, Universal). If you've not played the first in the series, it doesn't matter - it couldn't be any simpler in concept. Your task is to guide a small stick figure around a level, hopping over obstacles to find a key and make your way to the next challenge. There is, of course, a twist. Each level is split into four separate panels - panels that you'll need to shift around the touchscreen to make a path for your little fella in order to progress. Featuring some ingenious level design, you constantly need to move in and out of panels, sliding around to find the optimum route through the maze-like stages. Thanks to the ambient soundtrack and minimalist stylings, it's a strangely calming endeavour - although the tension builds dramatically if you want to complete the additional item collection and time-based challenges built into each stage. It's an incredibly unique take on the platform puzzler and comes highly recommended.

1-bit NinjaMore straightforward in scope is 1-bit Ninja (&#Array;1.19, iPhone), a retro-styled platformer that takes its cue from classic genre games of yore. It's not just the monochrome visuals that hark back to the good old days - this little beast is tough. That's in large part due to the utterly unforgiving, if always fair, nature of the gameplay – there are no mid-level checkpoints and, even more cruelly, you can only ever move forward. It owes a lot to the Mario games with its jump-and-stomp set-up, and even borrows a trick from Super Paper Mario: at any time, you can drag your finger along the top of the screen to shift the 2D levels into 3D, revealing secrets and shortcuts not otherwise obvious from its default side-on view. That feature, and its uncompromising platform purity, gives it a refreshing style of its own. If you're up to the challenge, and don't mind the odd hair-tearing, phone-flinging episode, 1-bit Ninja proves that sometimes simplicity is still king.

Pocket Academy Finally for this week, it's the turn of Kairosoft's school simulator Pocket Academy (&#Array;2.39, iPhone). From the same stable as the fiercely engrossing Game Dev Story, and slightly more exotic Hot Springs Story, it's another charmingly presented and deceptively involving addition to the developer's growing mobile gaming library. Your task is simple: create the best school in the world. Actually achieving that's a little more complex, with classrooms to be built, students to shape and teachers to whip into an education frenzy.

Its fiddly interface and flagrant disregard for explaining itself can be off-putting, but the sheer wealth of variables to experiment with and strategies to discover make for a remarkably deep experience. That you can follow the lives of your tiny student charges as they make friends, flounder through their first romances and fail or succeed in their education pursuits gives gives the game unexpected heart. It mightn't be as immediately compelling as Game Dev Story, but give it a chance and you'll be wowed by Kairosoft's unique genius all over again.

And that's it for another week's pick of iPhone and iPad games. It's Android's turn again next time, so join us as we seek out the latest and greatest titles to keep our handsets sticky in the IGN UK office. Don't forget: if you've got any recommendations for either iPhone or Android, plonk them in the comments below. We'll check 'em out and if they do us proud, expect to see them making an appearance soon. Until next time!